The Ballad of Asgrimm Thunderbeard

You had me at "rules for dinosaur racing."

I had my first experience of 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons on Thursday whilst visiting my wee cousin in Dundee. A bit anxious since I hadn't played a game since 3rd edition, but I figured it couldn't be that different, and since it utilised the new stuff from Tomb of Annihilation, how could I not?

Robert E. Howard's Conan - Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of

I feel a bit like an apostate. I've not been keeping up with REH news and events for a while, though I still pop in at the Robert E. Howard Readers Facebook page and very occassionally at the REH Forums. Things seemed a bit quiet.

Then Jeff Shanks had to go and ruin it all with this announcement.

Modiphius Entertainment announces the definitive sword & sorcery roleplaying game, planned for launch August 2015

KNOW, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of....

Modiphius is proud to announce a licensing deal with Conan Properties to publish Robert E. Howard’s CONAN Adventures In An Age Undreamed Of. This is CONAN roleplaying as Robert E. Howard wrote it – savage pulp adventure battling ancient horrors in the Hyborian Age! We plan to bring the game right back to its roots, focusing on the original stories by Robert E. Howard.

Modiphius has scored a leading team of Hyborian Age scribes to chronicle these adventures including Timothy Brown (designer of the Dark Sun setting for Dungeons & Dragons), award-winning Robert E. Howard scholar and essayist Jeffrey Shanks (Conan Meets the Academy, REH: Two-Gun Raconteur, Critical Insights: Pulp Fiction, The Dark Man: The Journal of REH Studies, Zombies from the Pulps!), Jason Durall (Basic Roleplaying, Serenity, The Laundry), Chris Lites (Paizo, Savage Worlds, Omni, Slate), and many more to be announced.

Players and GM’s alike will feel the might of the 2d20 game system, the cinematic roleplaying rules devised by Jay Little (Star Wars: Edge of the Empire) for Mutant Chronicles, and sharpened up for intense sword and sorcery action. The 2d20 system lets players experience the true pulp adventure of the CONAN stories.

Howard expert Jeffrey Shanks will approve all content, ensuring it remains true to the spirit of the source material and brings the Hyborian Age to life. World-famous CONAN artist Sanjulian (Conan Ace Paperbacks, Vampirella, Eerie, Creepy) has been commissioned, as well as Carl Critchlow (Batman/Judge Dredd, Anderson: Psi Division). Joining them are other CONAN greats such as Mark Schultz (The Coming of Conan, Xenozoic Tales, Prince Valiant), Tim Truman (Dark Horse Conan, Grimjack, Jonah Hex), Phroilan Gardner (Age of Conan, World of Warcraft), Alex Horley (Blizzard, Heavy Metal, Magic: The Gathering) and many more.

Modiphius is working with other Conan Properties licensing partners including Monolith Board Games, creator of the hit CONAN boardgame which has surpassed $2 million on Kickstarter, and Funcom, creator of the long-running, free-to-play, MMO Age of Conan. Modiphius plans some select supplements including missions designed for the Monolith boardgame, as well as floorplan tile sets allowing you to use Conan miniatures in your roleplaying adventures!

Modiphius is already working on the roleplaying corebook for Robert E. Howard’s CONAN Adventures In An Age Undreamed Of to be released this Fall. A Kickstarter is planned for the summer to fund a larger range of roleplaying supplements, campaigns, and accessories to follow the core book.

Ho, Dog Brothers! (and Sisters) Don your mail, hone your blade, and pray to whatever fickle gods might listen. Harken to the sound of clanging steel, cries of battle, and death curses spat from bloody, frothing lips! Tread the jeweled thrones of the earth at www.modiphius.com/conan or die in towers of spider-haunted mystery. Crom cares not!

So having talked with Jeff about this just after the announcement, it seems that this is going to be something I've been wanting since I got back into Robert E. Howard - a Conan adaptation that just sticks to Howard, with no pastiches whatsoever. No Arenjun, no Serpent Crown, no Spider-Thing of Poitain, no Colossus of Shem, none of that. No ties with the comics, films, or books by other authors. And this isn't just us Howard crumbs - some real stars in that team there from the world of RPGs. Not to put too fine a point on it, this is extremely cool.

This follows up on the tremendous Monolith Conan RPG, which still has some time left on the clock (just over two days as of this posting) to go nuts with stretch goals. I've backed it: it's the first time I can recall when you could have miniatures based on characters other than Conan, Belit or Thoth-Amon - Valeria, Shevatas, Taurus, and my girl Zelata!

Sure, the Aquiromians and Uberboreans are still lingering, but with this new RPG announcement, I feel like we're getting there. The Mongoose Conan RPG was excellent, but I'm of the opinion Conan and the Hyborian Age is easily rich enough to support multiple interpretations, and this extends to RPGs. Perhaps, then, this could be the start of an entirely new generation for Howard and Conan? The Conan license seemed stuck in a sort of limbo: the 2011 film, Mongoose losing the license, Brian Wood and then Fred Van Lente all but rebooting the Dark Horse Conan, Age of Conan going free to play. It seemed Conan was in danger of slumber. Perhaps now, after Conan Meets the Academy broke down the gates of Academia and Howard's status as A Writer Of Real Literary Merit has become normalised, we're going to see a change.

Well, we'll have to see, won't we?

Lara Croft & Me

We have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us — the labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.
 - Joseph Campbell, The Hero with A Thousand Faces

So you might've noticed I'd been talking about Lara Croft recently, in mostly very harsh tones about the sexualisation and agency of her character following Crystal Dynamics' newest reboot. The game's been released, and reviews have been spectacular across the board: even more critical ones like Ellie Gibson's give it a good score. Evidently it succeeded in every way it needed to - gameplay, production values, and crucially, story and character. Sounds like a solid title all the way.

So why am I still not going to buy it?

It's... complicated.

Bite-Sized Blog: Conan, Theosophy, and Expendables

Iggy Pop dressed as Conan, looking about as depressed as I do looking at this cover to Conan the Barbarian #10.

Well, time for another update: times are interesting indeed, as it turns out I have more time for one project when I was under the impression I had a matter of days, while the other project is still in the womb of creation, waiting to be snatched out. How purposefully vague.

In the meantime, quite a few things have happened in the world of adventure.

A Word on Female Fans, Femininity and Fandom

 Yes, this is an actual cover for an actual upcoming monthly for Conan the Barbarian. My thoughts? It's the most amazing troll I've seen since the Darrow cover. Fantastic job, Dark Horse.

I've been holding off on "80 Years of Conan: The Frost-Giant's Daughter" because I've been wrestling with one of the key issues with the story.  I've been conversing with a number of individuals I believe to be more experienced and authoritative in said issue, because while I really don't want to talk about the deeply unpleasant subject, I also think it's important to acknowledge it. In any case, I'll be providing links to places that do talk about it, even if my take is going to be quite limited. However, there's another reason.

The Agency of Lara Croft

A (long) while back, I talked about Lara Croft, and how I think Crystal Dynamics seem to entirely miss the point as to how to make her more "feminist-friendly," "realistic," "relateable" or whatever they think will make their classic game heroine more profitable in the seventh generation of consoles. And it turns out in addition to changing her physique to something less cartoonish (which wasn't a problem, since the other characters in the games were also cartoonish: you might as well complain about Bruce Timm's characters being unrealistic), they're changing her personality and, indeed, the very concept of her status as a protagonist. I was afraid of something like this, but I didn't expect the spectre of sexual violence - in a trailer, no less - to rise in a game which purports to be an origin story for one of the most uncompromising badasses in video games. Obviously, since this is a younger Lara, the change in her physique at least has an explanation. Even if I disagree with the intentions and reasoning behind it, it's at least understandable. The meddling with her character, however, is not as defensible, and certainly not when her character is threatened with violation.

Most of the internet is aflame - rightly so - with this insulting trope, which has already been applied to far too many heroic female characters, now being tacked onto the already perfectly exciting origin story of Ms Croft. I'm not going to talk about that, though I will link to several articles that do which I vigorously agree with. However, I am going to talk about agency, and why changing Lara from protagonist into protectee is every bit as damaging as what Project M did to Samus Aran in Metroid: Other M, and an example of how sometimes - if they aren't careful - when people are trying not to be sexist, they end up just being even more sexist.

Transformers: Fall of Cybertron has a DINOSAUR TRANSFORMER

It's Grimlock.

Here's a trailer.



HOLY MOTHER OF PRIMUS

Fun with Skyrim

I really needed a distraction from things.  Thus, I made this.



Before you watch, you need to be familiar with the awesome The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim trailer, and it helps if you've seen the Transformers: War for Cybertron trailer too.  Others have done really fun versions: Dragon Age II and Mass Effect 3.  That's all, though.  Which disappoints me, since the Skyrim trailer is possibly the finest teaser I've ever seen.

It also gives me an opportunity to post this.



It's hilarious, because some think it's a biting satire on the fanboys who get too excited about trailers that don't show you anything, while others consider it an authentic encapsulation of their sentiments.  I think it's a bit of both, really.  See, Bethesda know how to make a damn teaser.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Grand orchestrals.  Viking chorus.  Max Von Sydow.

Yes, gentlemen, I do believe I'm out for the count.

Seven more things I want to see in the new Conan game

The Battle of Venarium as the tutorial level, please.

Since Mr Holmes of Destructoid's wishes amount to pretty much "if it was in Conan the Barbarian, stick it in," I thought I'd give my ideas, continued!

The Sexualisation of Lara Croft

And so we find Crystal Dynamics have released a preview of their latest Tomb Raider game, and I'm getting more and more frustrated and bothered by their direction for the games. I'll say that there are elements of this picture I like: I love that Lara actually looks like she's been mucking about in some godforsaken corner of the world, rather than being pristine and clean. She also has a few scrapes and bruises, also very appreciated.  I also like her determined expression, very strong and defiant. I don't see why it was necessary to change her trademark khakis for trousers, but I'm not too bothered, since it looks reasonable enough.  Overall, the image portrays a woman who's gone through an awful lot in a very short space of time, but come out alive.  Pretty powerful image, if I do say so.

That said, I have issues with it that are part of a much bigger problem.

Michael J. Bassett, Silent Hill, and Robert E. Howard

I've been quite critical of Michael Bassett's Solomon Kane in many regards. I even nominated him for the de Campista awards, which, in retrospect, I don't think was entirely deserved. Not because the changes he made to Kane's origin were any less objectionable, but because he did such a damn good job of praising Howard, without qualifiers or nonsense. His weird ideas on Solomon Kane's origins are an honest, artistic derivation, not one dictated by focus groups or trying to fit in with other stories he wrote. I'm not going to defend Solomon Kane as a Howard adaptation (which it isn't in the first place), but I know Bassett's heart was in the right place.

Anyway, Solomon Kane still hasn't hit North American theatres for reasons unimaginable, but Bassett's next adventure has been announced at Bleeding Cool - Bassett's writing and directing Silent Hill: Revelations, the sequel to the not-great-not-terrible Silent Hill.

"Historically Crazy" and Conan games

Earlier this week, I considered writing about the Conan games that have come out over the years. The problem with that is they were all by and large horrible games, and two publishers released better Conan games the games actually based on the Conan stories. I'm sure the historically crazy Robert E. Howard wouldn't have wanted his hallucinations converted into horrible video games, but alas, they were.

From 8-Bit Animal's post on the Conan games.  I have to wonder exactly what "historically crazy" actually means.  Is it used in the same way as "legendarily crazy"?  Does he mean that the historical person was crazy, as opposed to the popular mythic figure?  Does he mean that he would be considered crazy through the lens of history?  What a strange thing to say.  The reference to "hallucinations" makes me suspect that 8-Bit Animal has only seen "Conan Unchained," with the infamous interview with Milius, where he claims that Howard really believed that the ghost of Conan came to him at night, and he had to write them down.  It's a cool idea for a horror-dark fantasy story, but it ain't true.

For posterity, here's my response:

By the use of the term "hallucinations" I'm guessing you've seen "Conan Unchained," where Howard was presented as a paranoid barely-functioning nutcase who believed Conan's ghost was coming to him late at night to dictate his stories to him. That's a massive misinterpretation of what he actually said in his letters, where he was using similes to describe how writing Conan was so natural it was "as IF" his ghost was present. There's no evidence of Howard actually having hallucinations of a long-dead warrior king.

I'd suggest you read Blood and Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard, or at least Rusty Burke's "Short Biography of Robert E. Howard." Howard studies has made leaps and bounds over the last few decades, and commonly held "facts" have been soundly debunked. Howard was eccentric, true - what writer isn't? - but he's hardly "historically crazy." 

Anyway, it got me to wondering about Conan in videogames in general.  Perhaps I'll do a review of them some time down the line, or at least an overview.  The long-lived (by internet standards) and very cool site Conan the Digital has information about all the Conan games, though I don't think all of them are easy to attain, and some are quite infamously bad. Conan: Mysteries of Time is even considered one of the worst games of all time. That's frightening.

Of the games, I've only played two: 2004's Conan: The Dark Axe and 2007's Conan.  Both were rather substandard games, the latter better in terms of gameplay, but a lot shorter and far less satisfying an experience.  Both wrought havoc on Robert E. Howard's creation in different ways, though both are (marginally) closer to Howard than Conan the Barbarian or any of the television series.  It's been a while since I played both, though.  Another playthrough may be in order.

However, now that I have a shiny new laptop (4 GB RAM, 2.27GHZ processor, 450 GB Hard Drive) I might - might - be able to run the big one.  Yes... Age of Conan.  All I need to do is get my internet worked out, and Taranaich of Cimmeria may make his first encursion into this strange universe...

Fantasy Cliches are both Good and Bad, According to Greg Tito

In Greg Tito's piece, he asserts that mechanical cliches (storytelling devices such as the concept of monster-haunted ruins, gaining experience and classes) are good, while narrative ones are frequently trite and, thus, bad.  For example, he posits that the idea of a spell user being physically frail is a necessary element of the party dynamic that encourages tactical and strategic thinking, whereas the other trappings like the Odin hat and beard are .

It's a good enough article for the first page.  Then on page two...

Early thoughts on Dragon Age: Origins

So after months of waiting for Game to get a copy of the Dragon Age: Origins special edition, I was getting pretty fed up. I noticed that there was an easter sale going on, and spied a cheap PC copy. Frustrated with Game's nonsense but not wishing to punish the very cool, competent lads who work there, I decided to just purchase the normal edition. Most of the SE content requires an internet connection anyway, and my gaming rig doesn't have access. Ah well.

Lego The Lord of the Rings!?!

It could happen, according to Traveler's Tales, the developers of the rather brilliant Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones and Lego Batman video games. EA has dropped the LotR rights to Warner Brothers... who owns Traveler's Tales.

Triangulation: Of Atlanteans, Techno-Vikings, Fan Films and RPGs

Whoo, I thought I did well last week with my three posts: this week I top it!